Episode 1 x 5 Alternate Ending- Stannex (Val and John)
by Valiae
Summary: Valerie has a different fate. Valerie Stahl and John Kennex get closer.
1. Chapter 1

_My first shot at fanfiction... Let me know what you think. An alternate ending to Episode 5 in Season 1 "Blood Brothers"of Almost Human. Feedback is always appreciated (especially on dialogue formatting, I'm terrible at that...)! I'm splitting it into a couple chapters to reduce excessive length, please read on if interested. -B_

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The two Ethan clones gripped her arms tighter as they saw Captain Maldonado leading the still shackled Ethan Avery from the back of the tactical Police vehicle. "That's him" the sniper said from the top of their van after examining him closely through the scope; she could sense the relief in his voice.

Valerie let out a deep breath, unwilling to let herself believe that this trade would go smoothly. Somehow, she knew that the man in orange, shuffling towards her right now, was not Ethan Avery. She wasn't sure how they had done it, but every muscle in her body remained tense as she watched them approach across the field. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and the adrenaline was pumping through her veins again. _I'm going to need a long nap after this is over,_ she thought ruefully, _and I guess however this turns out I'll get one_. Subtly, she tested her handcuffs and rotated her wrists, but the Ethan on her right felt the movement in her arms and shook her, growling "Stop that. You're almost free. It looks like your friends really do value your life."

"Stop talking to her!" the other Ethan snapped. They settled back into a tense silence, and began walking forward, while Valerie scanned the surroundings. Kennex and Dorian stood in front of the tactical van about 500 meters away. She wasn't sure how quickly she could sprint the distance, but with the clone sniper on the van behind her, it likely wouldn't matter. She hoped that if anything went wrong, Kennex could lay down enough cover fire for her to hit the tree line to the left that was closer to 300 meters away_. I'm glad that he and the captain were willing to make the trade for—_

Her thought was interrupted and her stomach plummeted as the Ethan to her left stepped on a stick. The loud SNAP scared some birds into the air, and they flew right _through_ the Captain and Avery. Her mind barely had the time to comprehend that what she was seeing was a hologram when she heard Kennex bellow "NOW!"

While the Ethans gaped and struggled with the truth, Valerie drove her elbow into the stomach of the clone on her right, and then brought up her clasped fists to slam the other in the face. She kicked his legs out from under him and sprinted towards Kennex, completely forgetting her plan to head for the trees. She was so wrapped up that she had taken a good 5 or 6 strides before she heard Kennex's gunfire. She thought _I hope he got the sniper—_right before she felt the impact below her right shoulder blade. As she fell she saw something rush past her. _Dorian? _The thought fleeted through her mind before she crashed headfirst into the ground. White lightning spread through her blackened vision from where her head had struck the rocky field. The pain in her back was intense and localized, but the adrenaline pumping through her system forced her to roll onto her back. She saw an Ethan barreling towards her, pure fury evident on his face. She reached her cuffed hands down towards her ankle and retrieved a small knife in just enough time. He fell, limp, on top of her and warm liquid leaked down her arms and onto her abdomen from the spot where the knife had buried between his ribs.

She heard a loud crash, and then saw the Ethans' van flying through the air. Then her head sank back down to the grass and she closed her eyes. She wasn't even a few seconds into her well-deserved nap when she heard Kennex's gruff voice. "STAHL! VALERIE! Talk to me!" Her eyelids sprang open and she watched the out of breath officer shift the weight of the clone off of her. "Hey," he said, placing his hand behind her head with his thumb on her cheek. Relief flooded his hazel eyes for a second as he met her eyes, but then worry clouded his face when he studied the wounds on her head. "You're bleeding." His voice got quieter and more somber as he touched her blood soaked shirt.

"That's not my blood," she said breathlessly as he examined her for a bullet wound.

Dorian's voice cut in "She's right. That blood belongs to Ethan Avery's clone." She shifted her vision above Kennex's kneeling form and watched Dorian study her as the blue circuits on his face flashed and scrolled while he computed her medical condition. She lifted herself up onto her left elbow and Kennex drew back, surprised.

"I thought you were hit" he breathed, relieved and surprised at the same time. He looked down so she wouldn't see his facial expression, and noticed the handcuffs. Kennex pulled a multi tool from his pocket and unlatched the cuffs. Valerie rubbed her wrists as she rose to a sitting position.

"She was wearing armor, but appears to have some skeletal damage, bruising, and internal bleeding from the bullet" Dorian observed. "You really shouldn't be trying to get up right now" he said with a frown, as Valerie extended her hand to Kennex for a lift.

"I'm fine," she murmured as she got to her feet and closed her eyes momentarily to stave off the dizziness, "You worry too much".

She stumbled off to the side a bit, and Kennex grabbed her arm to steady her. "Here, hold on to me," he growled, and put his arm around her waist. She slung her left arm over his shoulder and they started back to the Police van. "You are _full_ of surprises," Kennex stated as they approached the car. A smile skittered across her lips, but was wiped away by a stab of pain from her shoulder. She tensed and sucked in a strained breath through her teeth. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and this was about to get a hell of a lot more painful.


	2. Chapter 2

Rudy emerged from the back of the vehicle, urging "Come on, come on, let me have a look at 'er" in his worried British accent. Kennex eased her down on to the back gate and Rudy came over to stand beside her. "Now how did you manage that?" he mused as he marveled at the bullet hole in her shirt with no wound behind it.

"She's still suffering from bruising, internal bleeding, and two fractured or broken ribs" Dorian commented.

"Look, I'm going t' need t' take your shirt off so I can get a bettah look at…" Rudy tittered nervously, trailing off at the end of the sentence.

"Of course," she breathed out through her nose quickly and the edges of her lips lifted up the slightest bit from a contained laugh. Her eyes found Kennex's and he quickly looked away; her eyes then quickly found the ground. She nodded and started lifting her shirt off over her injured arm. This revealed a shimmering black shirt exactly the same shape as the V-neck she had been wearing above it.

Dorian, who hadn't looked away, studied it closely with his blue eyes. "That is your body armor?" he questioned.

Rudy let out a whistle as he brushed his fingers against the material. "I've nevah seen one of these beauties befor'," he stated, and paused. "A bentiform auline polymer?"

"Something like that" she murmured, wincing as pain flashed down her back and up the back of her neck. "Do you have any pain meds on you?"

Rudy looked surprised and then sprang into action, "Of course, of course, how rude of me. Let me see here…" he shuffled through his briefcase, and emerged with a syringe. "Alright, just relax now" he said as he placed the flat metal tube against the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and he pressed the button at the top of the syringe, which pushed forward 4 small needles that administered a relatively strong pain killer. As soon as the needles retracted, she could feel the cool numbness spread up the back of her skull to ease the aching of her head, and down and around her shoulder and back, wiping away the intense pain.

With a happy exhale, she turned to face Rudy, who had resumed his position at her right side. "It's unique," she said, "That's why you haven't seen it before." She tapped her left bicep twice lightly with her middle finger, and the armor melted away, leaving a small but intricate shield marking on her arm that resembled a tattoo.

"That's a pretty neat trick" Kennex remarked, walking around to look at her arm. "Is this new tech?"

Dorian answered for her "This technology has never been sold legally, nor in the records we have, on the black market."

Valerie considered lying, saying that the creator was dead and that this was the only one, but something in Dorian's face told her he would be able to tell. "That's because I made it" she said. Kennex raised an eyebrow, while Rudy didn't manage to contain his look of surprise or awe. "Look, I don't want to get into this now," she sighed.

Rudy nodded and returned to examining her back. "How bad is it?" she asked. It tingled as he ran his fingers over the ugly blue and purple bruised area.

"You're going to need to go to the hospital" Rudy said. "Besides pain management, there isn't much I can do fo' you. That armor saved you a lot of pain and probably a few blood transfusions though." _Not for the first time,_ she thought.

"Alright then, let's get moving." She said, and watched Rudy's eyes flicker up to her head wound. "You can patch me up on the way to the hospital."

Kennex's phone beeped angrily, and as he turned away to take the call, she reached over to put her shirt back on. She recoiled at the touch of the warm, wet fabric, remembering suddenly that she was covered in Ethan's blood. Looking down, she puzzled at her unspotted abdomen and white bra, next to her blood streaked arms and hands. She recalled the sensation of the warm liquid dripping onto her shirt. "The body armor must have protected you from the blood as well," Dorian remarked, as though he had read her mind.

She hopped to a standing position, nodding slowly. "Does anyone have some water?" Grabbing the bottle Rudy extended to her, she walked around the side of the truck and tried to scrub the blood off. She ran out of water but kept scrubbing, though the red tinge refused to leave her skin. Suddenly, she couldn't see what she was doing, and she realized that tears had filled her eyes.

_They were just clones_, she told herself angrily as she blinked the tears away. "Hey." She jumped at the voice and the soft touch on her shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Dorian said and moved his hand from her shoulder. She turned around and shook her hands, trying to get the rest of the water off. His blue eyes studied her as she shivered, and then in one smooth motion he removed his grey long-sleeved shirt and extended it to her. "You are cold, please put this on," he said. With a sad, but grateful smile she wiped her hands on her jeans and then took the shirt. After she had shrugged it over her head, she used the sleeves to wipe her eyes, and looked up at the android. Sometimes, she found herself forgetting that he wasn't in fact human.

"Thank you," she said and reached out to squeeze his hand, then walked past him to climb into the rear of the vehicle.

"Okay, Captain, you got it" Kennex said and shoved his rusty, 3-model-old phone into his pocket. "Nice shirt" he remarked to Valerie, as he glanced up at Dorian climbing into the passenger seat in his white under shirt. "Let's get you home." He slammed the back doors closed and walked to the driver's seat.

Rudy took great care when cleaning the gash near her temple, though she knew she would be complaining if she wasn't on painkillers. They rode in silence, but every once in a while Rudy would pause to meet her brown eyes with his blue ones and half open his mouth as if to ask a question. He would quickly press his lips together again and resume his work. "You want to ask me about the armor" she stated. She knew he was curious from the second he had seen it.

"Well, erm, I would, er… yes," he muttered and looked at her nervously. He pulled the last stitch through the wound and tied it off.

"Well go ahead."

"So how did you—"His question was cut off as the back door screeched open.

Valerie hadn't even realized they stopped moving, so she squinted at Kennex's backlit figure in drug muddled confusion. "C'mon," Kennex said, "Let's get you to a doctor."

Valerie turned to Rudy and said "I'll stop by the lab sometime and we can talk about it," before rising and hopping down from the back, ignoring Kennex's extended hand.

"What was that about?" Kennex asked with a smirk on his face and raised eyebrows.

She didn't answer; instead she lifted her eyes to admire the glass and steel form of the hospital that twisted up 70 floors above them. He walked her to the front door and turned to her, lightly placing a hand on her uninjured arm. "Give me a call when you need a ride home," he said.

"Thanks, John" she said with a faint smile. She watched him walk away, and then strode through the door that opened automatically in front of her.

She almost wished that Kennex had stayed with her; she didn't like hospitals and didn't want to be here alone. Valerie shook the thought away from her head, feeling silly. _I'm a big girl, and I don't need anyone to take care of me, _she thought, laughing internally for needing to talk herself into this. Taking a deep breath, she went to the front counter and placed her hand on the scanner.

"Detective Stahl, how can we be of service to you today?" the hologram behind the counter asked.

"I need a full diagnostic and treatment, no questions asked" she stated. Before she knew it, she was in a white hospital gown lying in a diagnosis tube. The whirring that surrounded her when the process started made her head spin. She closed her eyes and drifted off.

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_Thanks for reading everyone! Please leave comments and suggestions! -B_

_Last chapter has now been posted!_


	3. Chapter 3

She exited the hospital doors and the brisk night air rushed to meet her. She would have crossed her arms to battle the chill, but her right arm was already in a sling so she just awkwardly hugged it with her left hand. The wind ruffled the oversized grey long-sleeved shirt she wore, and swept her unbound wavy reddish brown hair across her face. She was reaching up to tuck the hair behind her ear when Detective Kennex pulled up in his beat up black cruiser. He rolled down the window a crack and shouted "Get in!"

She sat in the passenger seat and closed the door. "You look tired," she observed, "I'm sorry if I woke you up."

He looked at her and said "Don't worry about it. I don't sleep much anyway." They rode in silence for a while.

"Make a right here," she said, and it felt like a shout in the quiet expanse between them.

"I'm glad you're okay" Kennex said awkwardly.

"Thanks," she said with a sad, tired smile.

"So… that body armor was pretty cool" he said. "Do you always wear it?"

"Yeah," she answered as she studied his face that was looking intently at the road ahead. "It forms to the shape of my clothing, and it's saved my life a few times. I came up with the prototype after being hit by two armor-piercing bullets through my police vest a few years ago. It's based on reflection-absorption technology… well, never mind." When he turned his head to look at her, she met his eyes for a moment and then turned to look through the windshield at the night.

"I didn't know you were into building tech" he said.

"It's always been a hobby, but I haven't built anything in a while," she answered. "Would you do me a favor and not tell anyone about it? It's just better if they don't know."

"Uh, sure," he answered, and they settled back into silence. She would occasionally give him directions, but otherwise they didn't talk. It wasn't one of those uncomfortable silences that sometimes happen, it was comfortable; there was no need to talk, they could just be together. It kind of made her long for the days of human partners, when there weren't always androids sitting cold and silently in the passenger seat. Kennex's silences were warm, and interesting. Valerie could tell that he was thinking, and remembering. She liked it, liked watching him think. His face was almost always a stone wall, but every once in a while, a twitch around the eyes or the slightest upturning of the sides of his mouth gave her hints into his mind.

He could feel her eyes on him. He looked straight ahead and tried not to think about it, but once again, she was all he could think about. Now he found himself re-living the feelings he had when he saw her get hit and go down, the relief when she opened her eyes, the terror when he saw her blood soaked shirt, the stirring when he saw her armor melt away and expose her slim abdomen and lacy white bra, and the jealousy when he noticed her wearing Dorian's shirt. Like it was a stupid romantic comedy, he regretted not offering her his shirt, not being the hero in that situation. _Am I jealous of a bot right now? This is ridiculous,_ he thought. He glanced over at her and studied the oversized shirt she was wearing, the curve of her lips, the wave in her hair and the sadness in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked gruffly, returning his eyes to the road.

"What? Nothing." She laughed nervously, "Why, does something look wrong?"

He sighed, thinking _I shouldn't have said anything. _But instead of his normal response of 'never mind', he said something truthful. "You look sad."

She didn't know why his observation of this made her so angry, but suddenly she was burning at the statement. She wanted to snap at him, but instead took a deep breath and paused to think. "So do you," she replied. "You're not the only one who carries sadness with them and lets it show sometimes." She didn't mean for it to sound harsh, she was only speaking what she had observed, just like he had.

She had been thinking about how she couldn't wash the blood off of her hands. She knew it was just a clone, and she felt like she was being stupid, but they had seemed so human, so much like brothers when they had captured her. They were putting their lives on the line for Ethan, out of love and duty. Valerie was still trying to figure out how she felt about androids like Dorian, the DRN models with synthetic souls. Now these clones had her feeling like she did for real humans. But she wasn't about to explain all this to Kennex. She watched his reaction to her comment instead.

Kennex saw the truth and insight in Valerie's observation, but didn't want to admit it to her. "This is my house" she said as they pulled up to a small cottage. He was relieved for the change in conversation.

"You live _here?_" he asked. "Blast from the past. This is what my grandparent's house looked like."

"Well I like historical stuff like this," she replied. Unconsciously, she went to open the door with her right hand, but got rewarded with a stinging pain in her arm and back for her trouble. She gritted her teeth and sat back in the seat for a second.

Kennex rolled his eyes at what he was about to do, then said "Hold on, I'll get it for you". He got out and walked around to open the door for her.

"And you're calling my _house_ old-fashioned?" she laughed.

He gave her a half smile and shut the door behind her. "So… you're home" he said with a shrug. His heart was starting to race like it hadn't in many years, and there were butterflies stirring in his stomach. "Might as well walk you up to the door, while I'm doing this whole chivalry thing" he said.

She smiled and wrapped her left arm around his right, as a joke. "Okay, then. Don't forget your top hat," she teased with a smile. When they got to the front door, she turned to face him. "Hey, uh… thanks for everything. You saved my life today. And you didn't have to pick me up, but I'm glad you did". Her heart was beating quickly now. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

When she pulled away, Kennex studied her face for a few seconds before he gently grabbed her chin and pulled her in for a kiss. She pulled away breathless, with a small smile on her face. She wanted to kiss him again, but she was afraid things would escalate, and she wasn't sure of her feelings.

"I really should get some rest," she said, and squeezed his hand. "Thanks for the ride." He watched her go inside and close the door. He got back in the cruiser, and again, she was the only thing on his mind for the rest of the ride home.

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_That's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think. I'm probably going to write more Almost Human fanfics in the future, so follow me if you're interested! Thanks for reading, reviews keep me inspired to write :) -B_


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